January 9 Asheville NC

Today was dedicated to getting prepared for the trip. We visited AAA to stock up on maps, Ton likes to follow along the route with a paper map, it has been a good backup when the electronic nav does something weird. We also visited Costco to load up on food. Before leaving Sparanburg we stopped in the BMW visitors center to check out the museum there. From there we took US 278 to Asheville. It was a nice drive as we climbed into the Appalachians. The waterfalls as we climbed up into the mountains were frozen due to the severe cold. We stopped at Ceasars Head State Park in South Carolina, and the ranger there said that the low the night before was -5 degrees.

After arriving in Asheville we checked out a couple of local breweries to see if there claim of being the new beer capital of the US had any merit. So far we haven’t seen anything to convince us that Portland is not the place to be for beer. However, we are going to give them one more chance tomorrow.